Here is a condensed version of some of the material I’ve put into this thread. It’s not a truckload yet, but it’s getting there.
There is a natural break between Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 2:5. In Genesis 2:5 and throughout the story of Eden, we translate Eritz as land, and we thereby resolve the apparent contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Eden is a land, Eden is not the world. Eden is local, not global. This resolves the following apparent contradictions:
Genesis 2 has creation in a different order from that in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 has plants, then fish (and dinosaurs and birds) created before mammals, and then last, man. Genesis 2 has Adam created first, then trees and last, animals. If Genesis 1 is the story of the creation of the earth and life on earth, but Genesis 2 is the story special creation in a garden, then there is no contradiction. God created the earth and people, and then later God created Eden’s garden and Adam.
Local Eden answers the question of where Cain’s wife came from. She came from outside the Garden.
Local Eden answers the question of who Cain was building his city for. He was building it for some of the people who lived outside of the garden.
Local Eden answers the question of how the genealogies can indicate Adam lived 6 to 10 thousand years ago, but people have been around for 100,000 years.
Local Eden answers the Problem Of Pain and eliminates the need for the false doctrine of Original Sin. I have written about this in other places on the Forum. In a nutshell:
Only God is perfect.
We are not God.
Therefore we are not perfect and will inevitably sin.
Adam was not perfect, because he was not God, but Adam was blameless because he did not know the difference between good and evil.
Adam chose to gain the knowledge of good and evil.
When Adam gained the knowledge of good and evil he became culpable for his actions and was no longer blameless.
All humans, given the choice would have made the same choice as Adam.
All humans, because we desire to know the difference between right and wrong and make our own decisions, we require something to make decisions about.
The evil in the world is composed of challenges to overcome or be overcome by, alternatives to choose from, and people who choose to do evil and these things are all necessary consequences of or prerequisites for moral freedom of choice.
God is not evil for creating people he knew would sin and a world with evil in it; because the evil in the world is made necessary by our own desire for the knowledge of good and evil.
I call that the doctrine of inevitable sin.
Local Eden makes a nice foreshadowing of a local flood. A local flood fits with the geological column and the distribution of fossils from complex to simple as we move downward through the column.
The fact that Eden and the Flood were local fits more correctly with the actual text of the bible.
That takes us to the question of how Genesis 1 fits with an old earth.
I make five assumptions (at least). The first is that if you go outside in a pouring rain at twilight, the sky won’t look much like a dome, until the rain stops, at which time it will appear that the sky has been partitioned by a firmament (try it for yourself, I’ll hold the umbrella). The second assumption is that the earth’s atmosphere was overcast until the Great Oxidation Event and therefore, to an observer on the earth, the sun, moon and stars would not be visible until such an event (this is why it took so long for Galileo to catch on in London, they had never seen the sun). Third is that the 7 “days” described in Genesis 1 are actually 7 separate visions, given by God, to some nameless prophet, each of which emphasized or showed a different part of the development of our planet, and that this prophet then passed this information down in the ancient Hebrew oral tradition until it was written down by Moses. Fourth is that the prophet viewed these visions from the surface of the earth. Fifth is that the prophet had imperfect understanding (like everyone else in the Bible outside the Trinity) of what he saw in these visions and God did not narrate or explain to this prophet what it actually was that the prophet was seeing. Thus we get:
First vision. 4.55 billion years ago - Formation of the Solar System. “void”
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/timeline.html
First vision. 4.55 billion years agoSunlight first reaches the surface of the rotating earth through the thick atmosphere. “Light”
http://www.windows2universe.org/jupiter/atmosphere/J_evolution_4.html
Second Vision. 3.8 billion years ago, it finally stops raining at the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment. “vault” BBC Earth | Environment, Climate Change, AI, Food, Health, Social, & Technology
Third Vision. 3 billion years ago - Formation of the first known continent, Ur. “land”
Third Vision. 2.7 billion years ago the earliest photosynthetic cyanobacteria appear. “plants” BBC Earth | Environment, Climate Change, AI, Food, Health, Social, & Technology
Fourth Vision. 2.4 billion years ago - The Great Oxidation Event: the Earth’s atmosphere gets oxygen. The sun, moon and stars are clearly visible for the first time from the surface of the earth. “lights”
Fifth Vision. 670 million years ago - First animals. 490 million years ago, jawless fish, To 150 million years ago - First birds. “fish and birds”
Sixth Vision. 114 million years ago - First modern mammals. “animals”
Seventh Vision. 5 million years ago - Humans split off from other apes (gorillas and chimpanzees). “male and female he created them”
Since the earth is old, why would God not have used evolution to create mankind and the animals that we see today? It is not the case that God only makes miracles instantaneously.
Mark 8: 22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”
24 He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into[a] the village.”
John 9:4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
The same people who complain that evolution is too bloodthirsty to have come from God are the same people who know all of the words to “There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood”. Evolution is not contrary to the nature of God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25-LJjrGQA